Category Archives: Reviews

Shattered Legions – edited by Laurie Goulding

Book forty-three in Black Library’s epic Horus Heresy series, Shattered Legions is an anthology collecting together stories which have all been available before in one format or another, but not in the numbered series. Featuring Graham McNeill’s novella The Seventh Serpent as well as all the stories from the previously released Meduson collection, this is as close to a definitive picture of the Shattered Legions as we’re going to get. All three of the loyal Legions broken at Isstvan V are featured, as are various others – traitor and loyal – but it largely focuses on the Iron Hands, leaderless and damaged.

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Forgotten Texts: Know Thine Enemy by Gav Thorpe

“Though we live for battle, a war is fought with wits as well as weapons.”

An eighteen-year-old Black Library story finally given the ebook treatment, Gav Thorpe’s Know Thine Enemy is a rare foray into the Salamanders for an author much better known for his Dark Angels stories. On the Imperial world of Slato, an Eldar artefact has been uncovered by the newly-arrived colonists. Sent to defend the colony while the artefact is studied, Chaplain Ramesis and his battle brothers must fight through Eldar ambushes to reach the embattled Imperial defenders. Guided by their hatred of the xenos, the Salamanders zealously discharge their duty…but are the Eldar the real enemy?

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QUICK REVIEW: A Rare Book of Cunning Device – Ben Aaronovitch

Released as a free audiobook from Audible, A Rare Book of Cunning Device is the first story in Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series to be written specifically for audio. Read by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, who’s narrated all of the audiobooks in the series so far, it sees Peter investigating the report of a poltergeist in the British Library, at the request of the feisty Miss Winstanley, one of the librarians. Accompanied by Professor Postmartin and Toby the dog, they venture into the depths of the library in search of whatever has been moving books and other items around the cavernous basement.
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Forgotten Texts: The Raven’s Claw by Jonathan Curran

“I see ravens wheeling, but beyond the shadows there is only darkness.”

The Raven’s Claw is the first of Jonathan Curran’s two Black Library stories, a tale of betrayal and absolution. On a war-torn Imperial world, the planetary Governor watches from the relative safety of his palace while the city around him burns in the fire of rebellion. His personal psyker, a telepath tasked with identifying threats before they take place, finds his vision clouded and uncertain, his gift strangely dampened. Meanwhile a man wakes in the darkness of a penal legion dropship, with no memory of his name or who he is, and is thrown into the grind of war.

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QUICK REVIEW: Mazlocke’s Cantrip of Superior Substitution – Graeme Lyon

Graeme Lyon’s wonderfully titled Blood Bowl short story Mazlocke’s Cantrip of Superior Substitution sees the legendary Jim and Bob commentating on a lower league match with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. Little do they know that the desperate coach of the Black Water Boyz has hired an unlicensed wizard to give his team an edge over their opponents, the Talabheim Titans. When the wizard’s spell takes effect, what seemed sure to be an uninspiring match turns into something rather more spectacular. Of course, an unlicensed wizard might not prove to be the most reliable of options for the Boyz…
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Horus Rising – Dan Abnett

This is where it all started, back in 2006 – Horus Rising by Dan Abnett, the first novel in Black Library’s ever-growing Horus Heresy series. It’s the start of the 31st millennium, and the Great Crusade is almost complete. A year after the Triumph at Ullanor, after the Emperor returned to Terra, the newly-elevated Warmaster Horus commands the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet and his Luna Wolves in the continuation of the Crusade and the promulgation of the Imperial Truth. Along their path are set two long-lost human civilisations, each wildly different, who react to being reunited with the rest of humanity in contrasting ways. Hope is still preeminent, but change is in the air.

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Forgotten Texts: The Falls of Marakross – Steve Parker

“Behind the greatest zeal, do we not often hide our secret shame?”

Steve Parker’s first story for Black Library, The Falls of Marakross is set in the Pyrus Reach, the setting for Sabretooth Games’ long out of print Dark Millennium card game. On the Imperial world of Cordassa, under siege by forces of Chaos, the arrival of a Dark Angels force led by Interrogator Chaplain Artemius raises the embattled defenders’ hopes. Inquisitor Heiron, however, is doubtful of the Angels’ objective – are they there to support the defenders, or for shadowy purposes of their own?

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Daedalus – LJ Goulding

Another step on his road to world domination instalment in his ongoing Scythes of the Emperor arc, LJ Goulding’s audio drama Daedalus is a tense, breathless hour of aerial Space Marine action. Named for a particular Tyranid Hive Ship, its sees an under-strength assault squad embark on a dangerous mission to rescue a stranded apothecary and, more importantly, the geneseed he’s protecting. Still reeling from their losses at Sotha and Miral, the Scythes’ highest priority is to protect their precious stocks of remaining geneseed, but with so few brothers remaining they can only spare a handful for this risky mission.

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QUICK REVIEW: Foul Play – Andy Hall

Andy Hall’s second Blood Bowl short story, Foul Play follows retired lineman Gulden von Sulkenhof, otherwise known as Sulk, who’s reduced to working as hired muscle for a pair of ogre gangsters. When his bosses place a risky bet on a match between the Gouged Eye and the Dwarf Giants, Sulk is roped in to be the referee in order to ensure the result goes their way. That’s easier said than done, and Sulk quickly finds himself between the Blood Bowl equivalent of a rock and a hard place.

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Hand of Darkness – Gav Thorpe

A companion piece to Eye of Night, part of Black Library’s Audio Week 2017, Gav Thorpe’s Hand of Darkness is an hour-long audio drama featuring the debut appearance of the Ynnari in a Black Library story, and is the second story to be set in the post-Gathering Storm 40k. This time it sees Roboute Guilliman persuading Eldrad Ulthran and Yvraine to help him by retrieving the Hand of Darkness, gifted by Abaddon to the daemon primarch Mortarion and now residing on the Plague Planet. To find it they seek knowledge from the Black Library before entering the Garden of Nurgle itself.

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